Australia Could Be The First Victim Of “Madhouse” Denial Of Climate Science

As the United States government begins scaling back environmental protections, climate scientist and Penn State professor Michael Mann is warning that ignorance of scientific data could lead to global disaster – starting in Australia.

Consistent refusal to accept scientific evidence supporting climate change and his insistence that global warming is merely a “hoax” isn’t just an embarrassment for the United States, Mann said. By engaging in a “fake debate” about the issue, it is ignoring pressing climate concerns already threatening countries around the world.

Not only has Australia experienced record-breaking weather conditions for years, Mann said the Antarctic ice sheet is also at risk – which, he explained, would set in motion the “destruction of the ice shelf.”

“Then we’re talking a 10- to 12-foot (3- to 4- metre) sea level rise, we don’t know how quick,” Mann said, in an interview with news.com.au. “We’re talking massive loss of coastal civilisation. That could be catastrophic for Australia and New Zealand. That’s a tipping point we’re very close to, if we haven’t already crossed it.”

Mann has authored a book addressing the issue of climate change denial. “The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial Is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving Us Crazy” was released last fall, following up on topics he introduced in a 2015 research paper investigating the “Serengeti strategy” – a tactic used by special interest groups to attack individual scientists whose research reveals inconvenient evidence.

“This is often employed wherever there is a strong and widespread consensus among the world’s scientists about the underlying cold, hard facts of a field,” stated Mann in his paper. “It is easier to bring down individuals than an entire group of scientists, and it still serves the larger aim: to dismiss, obscure, and misrepresent well-established science and its implications.”

With moves to prevent government agencies like the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and even the National Parks Service (NPS) from releasing information to the public, it’s apparent that this tactic is being employed. Despite “gag orders,” current and former employees of these agencies are fighting censorship by sharing facts about climate change via social media – and even organizing a scientists’ march on Washington in March.

“It is difficult to keep up with this dizzying ongoing assault on science,” Mann said in an opinion piece he wrote for The Hill. “We scientists are, in general, a reticent lot who would much rather spend our time in the lab, out in the field, teaching and doing research. It is only the most unusual of circumstances that gets up marching in the streets. An assault on science is just a circumstance. And we are seeing a rebellion continue to mount.”

In fact, Mann said that world-wide, we are “moving in the right direction” to address climate change risks. Although threatened, to pull the United States from the Paris climate agreement, other countries like China, have expressed a willingness to step in and assume a leadership role. Mann warned, though, that even a temporary setback, over the next four years, may still be enough to prevent us from meeting “critical targets.”

There is some hope, however – a group of notable representatives have admitted that the evidence to support global warming is no longer debatable. Former Secretary of State Jim Baker was in Washington on Feb. 8 seeking the support on a proposed carbon tax – a move he said would make “good sense” from a conservative, free market perspective. Still, the plan has been met with staunch opposition.